Skate America 2008: Yu-Na Kim dominates ladies field to win gold

The ladies free skate just concluded at Skate America and it was Yu-Na Kim (see right) from South Korea who ran, or skated, away from the rest of the field. Yu-Na had a huge lead after the short program and she continued to pull away big time after the free skate. NBC provided live coverage of the ladies finale and I'm glad I watched it because Scott Hamilton really explained what the judges looked for in their slo-mo replays. Yu-Na's rotations in the air are picture-perfect, no possible deductions for under-rotation or vaulting off the wrong edge, or any of the other reasons that lead to deductions. Her technique is unparalleled but she's human. During the slo-mo replays, Scott also pointed out when she was falling out of her camel spin which cost her some deductions. But she had the only triple-triple combination of the night (a perfect triple flip-triple toe) and it was thrilling to watch her soar above the ice.

Japan's Yukari Nakano and Miki Ando had a battle of the Giselles going on, with Yukari besting Miki with a more complete package of choreography and jumps. Giselle is a ballet (and a love story) where the title character plays a young village maiden. As commentator Sandra Bezic noted, Miki appeared to sacrifice choreography for the amazing jumps she was performing one right after the other. I also thought Yukari's program was more pleasing to watch because of the ballet-like steps she incorporated between the jumps and spins. But the season's just begun so who knows if Miki will tweak her program to more reflect the ballet origins of Giselle. 

And it was a nice beginning for the U.S.'s Mirai Nagasu and Rachael Flatt, both making their senior debut, placing fourth and fifth respectively. Scott and Sandra repeatedly pointed out that Mirai had undergone a growth spurt since winning Nationals in January 2008 and she's now getting used to her 5'1" height, her "new body." I kept thinking she had plastic surgery whenever they brought that up. And finally, the U.S.'s Kimmie Meissner will continue to find the consistency in her free skate - she fell on her first two jumps and singled a triple loop towards the end, and placed eighth overall.

Complete results are below. (Note: SP=Short Program; FS=Free Skate)

FPl	Name	Nat	Points	SP	FS
1	Yu-Na Kim	S. Korea	193.45	1	1
2	Yukari Nakano	JPN	172.53	3	2
3	Miki Ando	JPN	168.42	2	3
4	Rachael Flatt	USA	155.73	5	4
5	Mirai Nagasu	USA	142.90	4	7
6	Susanna Poykio	FIN	142.14	8	5
7	Mira Leung	CAN	136.16	10	6
8	Kimmie Meissner	USA	135.92	6	9
9	Yan Liu	CHN	128.12	9	8
10	Annette Dytrt	GER	116.83	7	11
11	Tugba Karademir	TUR	113.91	11	10
W/D	Valentina Marchei	ITA

Comments

[amelie]

thank you so much, i luv figure skating and luv your blog ^^ really nice, keep going!

[김지은]

As you can see from the name, I am a South Korean.

And, even if I was Japanese or something, I would've still rooted for Yu-Na.

Miki? Mao? Oh, save your breath, pretty ladies.

Yu-Na is definetely the rock and the star in

the Skate history.

[DarkProfits]

great work tuba

[Elizabeth Bonhomme]

The result is all wrong.. Rachel Flatt was robbed...How can someone build such a "lead" that even if you win the free skate and the person in first place completly falls apart and has several huge mistakes how can they still win? The COP is soo stupid...I have a feeling there will be a huge scandal the likes of Salt Lake in Vancouver..Then Mr Il Duce Speedy Cinquanta will have to address this completly incomprehensiable scoring system..